NBA Flopping: Enough is Enough

If Florida can have a Stand Your Ground law why can't the NBA?

Down goes Pietrus! Down goes Pietrus!    (Getty Images)

Players flopping to get foul calls has become a major problem for the NBA. It changes the outcome of games with players fouling out—like Paul Pierce and LeBron James did in game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals, it changes player's aggressiveness on both offense and defense, and key opportunities late in games are affected by players blatant attempts to mislead the referees.

More than anything though it takes away from the ascetics of the game. Nobody wants to watch a bunch of guys pretending to fall down. We want to see the best athletes in their sport compete.

During game 5 of the ECF last night, Jeff Van Gundy said, "The NBA needs to fine (Mickael Pietrus) a million dollars for that. Every time a player flops they should be fined a million dollars." He was exaggerating on the dollar amount but not the action, and he's right, the NBA needs to do something.

I don't believe fining players is a feasible solution, there's no way to definitively prove whether a player flopped or not on 90% of the would be reviewed plays. What they can do, though, is start holding players accountable for their reputations. If Pietrus has a game like he did last night—where he hit the deck at least 6 times in a span of 2 minutes as if there was sniper fire in the arena—don't give him the benefit of the doubt on any remotely close calls in the following game.

We can also start ridiculing these guys publicly, questioning their manhood, calling them soft and shaming them into playing like men. This isn't soccer, guys rolling around like they got shot every time they get flicked is just ridiculous.

Stern is supposedly always the smartest guy in the room, time to live up to that reputation. He can start by holding players accountable for theirs.